In recent years, many devices such as various home appliances, a typical example of which being a business-use handy terminal, are controlled by microcomputers. Further, as communication technologies such as Internet technologies advance, such a device is provided with a communication function to become capable of transmitting/receiving data through a network.
For example, a handy terminal may be provided with a function to perform a calculation process on the basis of a barcode read by a barcode reader, and in response to an instruction, to transmit a calculation result to a computer located at the center side.
Another typical example may be imode (registered trademark) in a mobile phone. In this example, a web browser or Java (registered trademark) Runtime Environment is installed in the mobile phone, and a center apparatus in a packet exchange network acquires a document described in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) from a server on the Internet, and delivers the acquired document as it is to the mobile phone. The mobile phone interprets HTML and displays the document on a screen.
Further, some of the devices may switch functions of a key provided on the device, using HTML (Patent Document 1). Also, in many Internet mail-order sites, data input by a user at the terminal side is received by the server side and verified, and as a result of the verification, if an error is found in data input and re-input is required, an HTML document for prompting the re-input is further delivered to the terminal side.